Wow talk about keeping a secret! Turns out in news today that Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban have a new family member! A little girl named Faith Margaret was born on December 28th! Top reason why no one knew about her? Because she was born via surrogate. (She is however 100% the couple’s biological daughter.)

“Our family is truly blessed, and just so thankful, to have been given the gift of baby Faith Margaret,” Kidman, 43, and Urban, also 43, said in a statement. “No words can adequately convey the incredible gratitude that we feel for everyone who was so supportive throughout this process, in particular our gestational carrier.”

Yesterday I posted the long and pending list of celebrities expecting in 2011 and as if she didn’t want to be left out, my lovely vegetarian favorite Alicia Silverstone came out today with news that she too, is also expecting her first child in the upcoming year. Holy guacamole! I feel as if every week (almost every day it feels like!) another celebrity (or person we know) is confessing to doing the baby dance. I wasn’t kidding about that baby boom! Here’s to Alicia and her future vegan baby!

It is the 1960s all over again people. Every turn I take it seems as if someone else is announcing their pregnancy. In my own world it seems as if a gazillion of people just made known their pregnancy. Facebook, classmates, coworkers, etc. Everyone is expecting. And Hollywood is no exception. Look at the crazy list of (just some of the) celebrities who have just publicized or recently declared they were expecting a baby in 2011.

Cute baby clothes will be the death of me. As many of my friends have babies or become pregnant I have developed a habit for checking out the baby section at all stores I enter. (Something that I have always liked to do but thought was weird when I was a single gal with single gal friends with no kiddies. Now I have an excuse!) As I graze the clothes racks I fall deeper and deeper into a strange new love with children and baby attire. Is it possible that baby clothes are more engaging than adult clothes? Yes. Everything is more darling pint sized. It’s also fun because they can get away with wearing things that us adults can no longer wear, like polka dotted leggings or tutus and other non necessary delightful things. While I am very addicted to little girls clothes, the boys have lovable duds too-little rocker tees and hats with mohawks. So f-ing adorable. I think I may need one of my own real soon so I can indulge in this shopping madness! Here are some charming things I have found lately that are too good to keep to myself. *If wondering where an item is from, scroll over the picture and it will inform you!*

Holy cuteness Batman! Some of the things that I have found lately are on familiar store sites, like Target, Old Navy (which really gives you bang for your buck), Gymboree (which surprisingly I am really loving) and of course, the infamous The Baby Gap (you can’t go wrong, especially if you have money). A new one that I had never known about is American Eagle’s baby line which is also really “ohh” and “aww” worthy.

However there are some kick butt sites out there too that have large and in charge sites fully devoted to making your kid the cutest baby on the freaking playground. Urban Baby carries this too cute onesie for little Donnie Darkos and other goodies like numerous plaid shirts (your baby will too look as good as Robert Pattinson) and other sweet graphic tees.

OMG. For cute a$$ Beatle shirts, super hero onesies, Dr. Seuss themed outfits and retro style baby clothes, you can go to The Retro Baby which is full of the most cheek pinching worthy outfits a kiddie can have. Oy. I love it. Love love love.

For political babies who would like to speak their minds or have no choice in the matter of displaying what is on their parent’s mind, go to Baby Wit which showcases many baby clothes embroidered with political messages (among other things).

Lastly one has to go to Punk Baby Clothes which is a misleading name since they have way more than “punk” baby clothes. They carry the most extensive collection of baby rock band, hip hop group, pop artists, hippie, etc. clothes I’ve ever seen. You can search in their “reggae baby” section or even the “gothic baby” section. Too funny…and adorable.

I am one of those people. You know, the weird “grandma stuck in young body” women who like to clip coupons. One of my absolute favorite pastimes is to scrapbook. I have been scrapbooking for years and have mastered the skill of scrapbooking on the cheap pretty successfully.

The first scrapbook I made was in high school and not only did I spend too much money on it (over $100 I’m sure), I also didn’t really know what I was doing. I spent lots of money on individually themed papers, stickers, embellishments, tools and so forth. I had never scrapbooked before and really it was just a clusterfu-k. I learned a lot after doing it though…like you need a plan, ideas, materials…and you need to do as much of it as possible without breaking the bank! Here are my tips:

1. Start stocking up on materials.
I always have an eye out for materials long before I need them. If a pair of craft scissors are on sale, I buy them. If paper packs are on clearance because they are out of season (Christmas paper, Valentine’s Day, etc.) I snatch them up. If I see Glitter pens at the dollar store, I grab them. It may seem annoying to keep this stuff around, but trust me it’s really nice to have them on hand when you need them. Just store it away in a shoe box in the closet like I do until you need it.

I got these packs of papers for a dollar each in the dollar section at Target along with the stickers. Total cost for 52 papers and stickers: $8. Normal cost of a pack of 36 papers alone: $7.99 in the scrapbooking aisle.

2. Use nonconventional materials and ideas.
I did a wedding scrapbook two years ago and a cheap and awesome idea I had was to use the cards from the guests. It was an awesome way to keep all the cards and well wishes from the guests and it also was an interesting twist to the scrapbook. It made it more personal and fun to look at later on. It was also cheap, since it was free. I used some of the fronts of the cards for wedding quotes and love quotes instead of spending money on the quote stickers at the craft store. It also was an easy way to theme my layout because I would use the colors on the card/font as my color scheme. More unconventional materials may be gift bags (baby shower bags are great for baby scrapbooks), wrapping paper (hella cheaper than scrapbook paper), buttons, etc.

This is actually my wedding scrapbook and here I used actual cards from guests.

3. Use craft scissors.
These are amazing. They seriously make any page look better. They are also expensive so buy them when they are on sale, when you have those beautiful 40% off coupons from Michaels and/or JoAnn Fabrics and at garage sales. And never let them go because you can use them for making cards too.

This is a page from my latest scrapbook for the baby I nanny (more pictures below) and you can see how I used craft scissors to make the pictures look more interesting. I love craft scissors!

4. Get ideas for layouts from the library or online-like here.
I go to the library almost weekly because I love all things free and I like to research. I absolutely love looking at scrapbooking magazines and books, which are plentiful. In these you get so many layout ideas that it really eases the brain fart you get when you sit down at your desk with a 12 x 12″ page and a million stickers and pictures to choose from.

5. Get prints on the cheap.
Get your pictures printed out when you have coupons, when stores have photo deals or print them out yourself from home (although, surprisingly I think this sometimes turns out to be more expensive).

6. Rough draft layouts.
It is really important for me to layout all my ideas first before I even purchase my glue stick. Once you start gluing and realize you f-ed up it’s going to be a pain the ass. I always lay out all my pages that I want to use, then place the pictures I want to use along with the embellishments for that page first. Then I usually go to bed because if I go any further something is going to end up messed up.

7. Editing the rough drafts.
Editing, editing, editing. Everything is edited. How many pictures can you fit on a page? (Sure you have 20 great pictures you can use for this page but how many are actually going to make the cut?) What is the color scheme? Which quotes fit the theme? Editing is so important when scrapbooking because once you glue something you can’t go back without having to get a new piece of paper, new embellishments, new pictures, etc. Very annoying. Ask my husband how many curse words I can rattle off when I f up a page.

8. Get the actual book (album) on the cheap.
Same as the papers and other materials, you can also find scrapbook albums cheap. They are usually quite spendy but if you are like me, you will use coupons, buy clearance albums or go to surprising places like Marshalls, Home Goods, and/or TJ Maxx and find them in the home decoration aisle on the severe cheap. I have been known quite often to find albums that are normally $30 for as cheap as $7. Holla! I just keep these like all other materials around until I need them.

It’s not a pretty process!

Scrapbooks are hard work man and usually take weeks to complete. In the end it’s usually always worth it. There’s nothing more thoughtful than something you made yourself to give to someone. I’ve made scrapbooks for boyfriends, girlfriends, babies, weddings, etc. and it’s always a winner. My latest project was a scrapbook I made for the parents that I nanny. I nanny their little baby girl and throughout the last 7 months I took pictures in secret and made them this scrapbook for Christmas. Get inspired and steal some of my layout ideas! Happy crafting!

I absolutely adore Nicole Richie. I full fledge have a girl crush on her. Massively. I love her boho style, her relaxed demeanor, her lifestyle, her wit, her family and her kids. She is my celebrity soul sister. So of course I only love her more now since discovering that she had an elephant at her winter themed wedding. (Elephant = my favorite animal. Winter wedding theme = what I was planning before we ended up doing a destination wedding.) This girl! I need to meet her. I want to personally tell Nicole Richie she is the beez neez.

As many of you know I am a vegetarian and I love kids. Naturally I plan on having vegetarian kids (at least until they can decide if they want to eat dead animals or not with their own free will). So I thought it was pretty cool that Nicole Richie is doing the same in her household. (It helps that her husband Joel Madden is a vegetarian.) As if I didn’t already love this girl, I love how she is raising her kids. Nicole has revealed she uses chlorine-free, non-toxic and hypoallergenic diapers for her children, and refuses to use baby wipes and instead uses cloth and water. She grows her own vegetables in her garden and purees her own baby food. Everything in her household is organic, down to the clothes, food and diapers. She also doesn’t feed her kids dairy. On The Talk, she also shared, “We don’t use battery-operated toys, we don’t use plastic… Sugar is obviously a big no-no.” She went on to share, “I was at a birthday party and there was a cupcake with all this pink icing and there was a blueberry on top of the cupcake. Harlow looked at it and her eyes got so wide and she was like ‘Ohh,’ and I was like, ‘Oh boy, here we go,’ and she was like ‘Blueberries!’ So I went to the kitchen and got her a whole thing of blueberries. And she was happy.”

I give it to her. It’s hard today to be able to live this kind of lifestyle but she’s doing it. It also helps that she has oodles of money, more than I’ll ever have but hey, still I give her props and can only hope I’ll be a kick ass mom like her one day.

Look at these guys-the cutest family ever. For more pics go to Nicole’s blog.

Looking for a fun thing to do with your kids, your spouse or with alcohol? My fave, Trader Joe’s is selling giant gingerbread men for $3.99 a piece. The “kit” comes with your giant gingerbread man with a tube of frosting, candy and sprinkles. I highly recommend breaking out your leftover Halloween candy though…the more candy the better. My nephews Woody and Buzz, and I had a little bit of fun last night decorating our giants, then performing surgery, then cannibalism. It would have been even more fun if I was drinking spiked egg nog but I’m still off alcohol. (7 days and counting! Woo hoo! Go sobriety!) Hope you all are having a very merry holiday season!

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Welcome to my mind...I frequently explore and express my concerns, interests and opinions and have them laid out here for your reading entertainment. Here you will find all things random, useful, and/or interesting about the things that cross my mind. Happy reading!